


And This is Life Eternal

by eksterteran



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angel Castiel, Angel Dean Winchester, Demon Dean Winchester, Gen, Knight of Hell Dean, M/M, Season/Series 10, Self-Sacrifice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-05
Updated: 2014-10-05
Packaged: 2018-02-20 00:17:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2408192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eksterteran/pseuds/eksterteran
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean's a Knight of Hell. Castiel and Hannah have managed to get him back to the bunker and have a plan. Sam can't do anything but watch.</p>
            </blockquote>





	And This is Life Eternal

“Dean,” Sam's voice was choked, his eyes red and wet with unshed tears, “I don't...I don't know how this is gonna end.” He huffed out a watery laugh. “And I know you hate talking about feelings and all that, but I gotta tell you, man: I love you. You were...you were always there for me, every time I was stupid and fucked up you fixed it. I kinda hate you for that, because it always leaves us _here_. But I'm proud of you, too, Dean. You're a hero and you never could see it. So...”

The man – being – in front of him sneered, leaning all his weight on his arms, which were manacled above his head in the Men of Letter's bunker dungeon, powerless in the same Devil's Trap that had held Crowley for so long. “C'mon, Sammy. Don't _cryyy_. We both know you're not beat up about this. You told me if our positions were reversed you wouldn't save me. So now they are, you got me, good job!” His voice raised exuberantly, “Now bring in the Angel, and let's get some smitin' goin' on!” The chains rattled as he tugged on them, his grin wide and manic, eyes flashing black.

“Dean, please...” His heart was broken, the words he'd said after the ordeal with Gadreel ones that were spoken in anger but that he'd never taken the time to apologize for. And now it was too late. He wanted to tell Dean he hadn't meant them but was stopped by a hand on his shoulder.

“Sam, you should go.” Castiel had been the one who had finally caught Dean, with Hannah's help, and brought him here. They had left for a couple of days immediately after, “to confirm the plan,” and then Castiel had returned alone. Sam didn't know how much grace he had left, he looked a little haggard, but the angel was confident he could reverse Dean being a Knight of Hell and Sam trusted him.

“Yeah, okay.” He took a deep breath and let it out slowly, looking back to his brother again. “I guess I'll say goodbye, just in case, huh?” His smile was forced, wavering, and disappeared as soon as he turned to go, shutting the dungeon doors behind him.

“Aww, Sammy, you don't wanna watch me fry?!” Dean shouted after him, then shrugged, not caring much if the man had heard him or not. He turned his eyes on the angel and let them slip to green again. “Hey, feathers. You gonna get all weepy on me too? No?” He tilted his head to the side mockingly, staring into sad, but firm, blue eyes. “Guess everybody was wrong, and you never did love me.” Again he sneered.

“Dean.” Even Castiel's voice was steady, emotionless. “I've been drawn to you ever since I pulled you from Hell. I did love you, and I still do and always will. That's why I have to do this.”

The demon snorted and shook his head. “Then do it, buddy! Let's get this finished so you can run off with Hannah and have cutsey angel babies, just like Metatron wanted. And don't try to tell me you're _dying_ , I can see your grace. I gotta admit,” he chuckled, “kinda blinding. Need to buy you a lampshade or something. Brighter than Hannah's, definitely, so I guess we know who wears the pants in that relationship.”

Castiel just watched him as Dean rambled. It was true, he and Hannah had found his original grace once Metatron was imprisoned and unbelievably it had melded with the little stolen grace he had left, leaving him more powerful than he'd ever been, bar the Leviathan. But he was going to need it for this. Not even listening to what Dean was saying anymore, just taking comfort in the sound of his voice and the familiar sight of his face, he stepped toward him until they were almost chest to chest. Dean couldn't move back farther, pressed as he was against the rear edge of the Devil's Trap.

He grinned. “Personal space, Cas.”

Castiel's lips thinned to a tight line and he stared into Dean's green eyes one last time. After several moments he reached up and cupped the demon's head in his hands, his thumbs brushing Dean's temples while his fingers threaded into the short dark blond hair. When he spoke his voice was deliberate and final.

_Father, the hour is come; glorify me, that I also may glorify thee._

_I have glorified thee on the Earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do._

_And now, O Father, glorify thou me with thine own self with the glory which I had with thee before the world was._

_I have manifested thy name unto the men which thou gavest me out of the world: thine they were, and thou gavest them me; and they have kept thy word._

_I pray for them: I pray not for the world, but for them which thou hast given me; for they are thine._

_And all mine are thine, and thine are mine; and I am glorified in them._

_I have given them thy word; and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world._

_I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from Evil._

_As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world._

_And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth._

With each line Castiel's eyes grew a brighter blue. His fingertips glowed, and then all his skin became radiant until the single light bulb burst but the room was bright enough that Dean had to hiss in pain and squeeze his eyes shut. Sound roared in his ears until Castiel finished the incantation – no, benediction – and then everything was dark and silent. For a few moments he was sure he was dead, since that was what he was expecting from this encounter. But slowly he realized he wasn't; his arms were still stretched above his head, though Cas' hands were gone from his face. Where there had been a boiling redness, a seething darkness inside himself, there was now only a luminous peace, a greater calm than he had ever felt in his entire life.

Quickly he opened his eyes; Cas wasn't in front of him any longer, but sprawled on the floor, blood running from his eyes and nose and ears, coating his teeth and lips as he stared up at Dean with a small, sad smile and fading eyes. And Dean could see his wings, spread across the floor, massive, too large to even be contained in the dungeon and so they disappeared through the walls near the tips. They were the color of dark chocolate, just like Jimmy's hair, and in his shock he couldn't help wondering which had influenced the color of the other, or if it was a coincidence. He shook that thought from his head, fear clenching in his chest as he watched each feather slowly turn to ash, a white-hot line of light smoldering up from tip to quill.

“Cas, _what did you do!?_ ” Without even thinking he jerked his hands free of the manacles, the metal shattering around his wrists, so he could drop to his friend's side and pull the angel into his lap. “Are you dying?! You can't be dying! What the fuck, Cas!?”

Castiel never took his eyes off Dean's face but they hooded and he shook his head in a tiny movement and breathed out a quiet chuckle, his hand coming up to lay over Dean's heart. “You'll be alright now, Dean. Don't worry.” For the first time since he'd come into the dungeon his eyes slid to look over Dean's shoulder. “They're beautiful. Just like you.”

Dean furrowed his brow, confused and about to argue the compliment as he glanced over his shoulder. His jaw dropped and his eyes widened. Curving from his back were a pair of wings, as huge as Cas' and the same shape, long and slender for speed and agility in combat. His wings, though, were tawny, the same dark golden brown as his hair, and tipped and flecked with white.

“For an angel to have white on their wings... It's just. You'll always be the Righteous Man.”

Dean's attention snapped back to the man in his arms, eyeing his crumbling feathers. “It'll be okay, Cas. Just tell me what to do!” Now that he knew what to look for, he could feel Cas' grace thrumming inside him, entwined with his soul, and could sense the emptiness in Cas. The angel had given Dean all of himself, and Dean was damned if he was going to let him get away with it. Frantically he tried to lay hands on him, to will some of the grace back into Cas, but nothing seemed to work. He didn't know what he was doing.

**“HANNAH! ANYBODY!”** he screamed for assistance, because Cas couldn't die. Cas couldn't leave him again. Helplessly he pressed their foreheads together, holding Cas even more tightly, uncaring of the hot tears that fell from his eyes and unaware of the audience that had gathered; Hannah, a few others who luckily had been allies with Castiel, and lastly Sam, who rushed into the dungeon and then stopped stock still in shock, unable to see Dean's wings but more than capable of seeing the forming ash of Cas' on the floor.

_“Dean...”_ Sam was breathless, completely unprepared for this and there was obviously no time to even start to research how to fix it. He couldn't do anything but stand back and watch.

Meanwhile Hannah stepped forward, and then the few others, each of them laying a glowing hand on Dean's back. She whispered into Dean's ear, all of them encouraging his new grace with their own. “Pull him back, Dean. For once take what you want and don't let it go.”

Dean sobbed, a single, hitched breath, his voice breaking. “I don't understand...” Perhaps he didn't on a conscious level, but between the instinct of Cas' grace and the gentle guiding of the others he did what she said. He reached out with the shining expanse that filled him until he felt he would burst and he grasped onto the last wisps of Castiel, who was now unconscious in his arms. He wrapped himself around what was ethereally left of the angel, the final bits of his consciousness, and refused to let them go even as they tried to slip away from him. Emotion and effort made his voice quaver, but he murmured to Cas anyway. “Don't leave me, Cas. Not again. Never again. I told you I need you, buddy. I know you know what I meant by that... I love you. I've loved you for a long time. Please. **Stay.** ”

Even before he began speaking he could feel that the vestiges of Cas drew on their combined grace even as they barely held themselves together. They only grew stronger as Dean gripped them and every moment they grew exponentially. When Hannah and the others sensed that Cas was saved they disappeared, leaving only Sam crying silently as he watched. But his tears stopped with a gasped, incredulous laugh when Castiel stirred. He was no longer bleeding, the tracks dried on his face, and it didn't take long for him to open his eyes sluggishly and knit his brow in the confused way only he had, when Dean pulled his head away.

“Dean...” The hunter could see in the other man's eyes that he was assessing both himself and Dean, and once the soul-grace combination was evenly split between them he subtly severed it in half. However, he left the fine link they had shared ever since he wrapped his grace protectively around Dean's scarred soul in Hell and pulled him free; what he had termed their 'profound bond'. His eyes flicked back up to meet the hunter's and the depth of emotion and awe they held was even greater than it had ever been before. “Dean, you saved me.”

Dean huffed out a laugh and sniffled, this one of those moments when he had no care about his image, and nodded. None of them knew what to say beyond that, everything that needed to be voiced had been spoken in words and in actions, and as Cas' wings rapidly regrew the feathers that symbolized his grace until they were full and shining again, Dean leaned back over the other angel and gave him a deep kiss that was love and thanks and a welcome home for good all wrapped in the firm press of their lips.

**Author's Note:**

> Castiel's Benediction is a trimmed-down version of [Jesus' "High Priestly Prayer"]() from before he was arrested.


End file.
